Her gaze started at his collarbone and slowly, slowly traveled down his torso. Heat followed in the wake of her gaze, which felt more like a caress than a perusal.
Fuck.
What would she do if he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her across his lap? He’d be a shit kisser right now, but as previously discussed his hands felt great. He just wanted to bury his face in her neck and breathe her scent into his lungs…
She swallowed and seemed to snap out of it, spinning around to the sink and turning on the water. It ran for several seconds before she switched to the sprayer and started wetting his hair. “How, um, how’s the temperature?”
He gave her a thumbs-up, his brain and…other things still focused on the palpable desire that had just passed between them like a downed powerline sparking and slithering across the pavement.
Tone it down.
He tried to think of something—anything—else, but then she touched him. Fingers sliding through his hair, massaging, lightly pressing her nails to his scalp. Goose bumps broke out across his skin and he closed his eyes, leaning into her movements.
Holy shit, it felt good.
The clean scent of his shampoo filled his nostrils as she lathered, going from root to end, around his hairline and moving her hands to the back.
His body went hot and relaxed all at once. It felt so damn good. A thousand times better than whatever the barber did, though it may have been because the dude who cut his hair was, well, a dude, and easily in his sixties.
And this was Claire. His mouthy, sexy roommate, leaning over him and arousing every nerve ending within reach.
In this moment he was completely at her mercy. He wasn’t even capable of washing his own hair, which was nothing if not a weakness. And yet he was strangely satisfied letting her do this for him. He’d asked her to, and took pleasure in how it felt as she performed this simple, basic task that he should be able to do himself.
Without thinking, he lifted his left hand and reached up to grip her waist. Her T-shirt rode up with the movement of her arms, revealing a thin strip of skin, and his thumb immediately went there. She felt soft, warm, and smooth against his own skin, which was weathered and rough from his constant outdoor activities.
She stilled her body, but kept her hands in his hair.
“Graham…” she chided lightly.
He squeezed his eyelids tight, dreading her next words, asking him to stop touching her. He waited, and she simply sighed and resumed the delicious massaging before rinsing his hair out.
As she went for the bottle of conditioner, he made a mental note to thank his barber for convincing him to use separate shampoo and conditioner rather than the combination products he’d always used before.
He sighed with pleasure as she went for round two, rubbing the thick cream through the strands. He moved his thumb back and forth across her hip bone, relishing the way his palm spanned the entire side of her hip.
Her breath hitched.
Graham’s eyes snapped open to find hers focused below his waist.
He just stared at her, unashamed of the situation he had going on down there. What man wouldn’t get hot while a woman he was attracted to attended to him like this? With his fingers mere inches away from her ass, no less?
Claire’s eyes slid upward to meet his gaze, pink staining her cheeks. She pursed her lips, but just before she leaned forward to turn off the water and grab a clean towel, he could have sworn he saw them curve up in a smile.
11
Twenty-four hours had passed and Claire still couldn’t stop thinking about washing Graham’s hair.
It had been a basic hygiene request, and at the time she’d thought nothing of it. But now, the image of his large, shirtless body stretched out, long legs splayed and head back in a position that almost felt like surrender, would be forever burned in her brain.
She could still feel the gentle rub of his thumb across her hip, his fingers burning her through her clothes. She also wasn’t likely to forget how very obviously he’d enjoyed the work of her hands through his hair, though as a woman who would give away half her savings for someone to constantly run their fingers through her hair, she couldn’t really blame him. Few things in life felt that good.
After she’d finished up, an air of awkwardness descended, and she’d escaped to hide in her room for a few hours. She considered sleeping in her own room that night, but in the end decided she wasn’t comfortable leaving him alone all night until his voice had returned.
The relief she glimpsed on his face when she padded into his room last night—wearing the frumpiest, most concealing set of pajamas she owned—told her he felt the same.